As anyone knows who has operated machinery, many circumstances arise when more than one pair of hands is necessary or useful when the time comes time to work on the machinery. For example only, and not by limitation, it is often necessary to remove the cutting blades from lawn mowers, large or small. In particular, commercial, walk-behind, self-propelled lawn mowers with multiple blades are particularly difficult to work on. These types of mowers typically have more than one blade. For one person to remove these double or triple blades is a difficult and time consuming operation. The blades are held in place by a single long bolt with a large nut. In the past, a person would hold one nut in place, lift the mower for access to the bolt and remove the first blade before moving on to the second and/or third blade. This required moving the nut securing socket from the first nut and placing it on the second nut before the second bolt could be removed. Thus, according to the prior art, multiple steps are required to remove more than one blade from multi-blade mowers.
The prior art includes a wide variety of tools for accommodating multiple fittings. A large number of multiple lug nut devices exist as exemplified by those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,063,475; 5,074,170; and 6,305,245 B1. Further, a double torque wrench, U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,644 B1 and a double screw driver, U.S. Pat. No. 5,218,758 are known.
Further, in the field of heavy machinery, and lawn mowers in particular, many devices have been developed for holding a cutting blade during removal, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,564,991. And, Applicant is aware of at least one device, U.S. Pat. No. 5,865,018, for assisting in removing a single blade of a non-commercial grade lawn mower by jamming the tool and blade against the inside of the lawn mower skirt.
A drawback to the tools known in the art is that none is useful in the pertinent field for use in removing more than one nut from a bolt on a lawn mower or other machines and none are flexible enough to accommodate a variety of machines with variously positioned nuts. Thus, there is a need in the art for providing a multiple nut tool for use in removing more than one nut from a bolt and which is movable in relation to the nuts. It, therefore, is an object of the invention to provide a multiple nut tool and method, which is flexible in positioning, for enabling removal of more than one nut from a machine.